and champagne.
Julia was mesmerized by the pistol sitting so casually in Strathmore’s hand. “There’s been an unfortunate occurrence, Wadsworth. Simply give me a moment or two.”
“I should say so. Those were gunshots we just heard. Sure of it.”
Strathmore lowered his voice and held her gaze with his own, daring her to contradict him. “I shall look after everything, Wadsworth, rely on it.” He motioned her toward the French doors. Before they could slip through the opening, she felt a hard hand lifting the hem of her garment. Without saying a word, he quickly unwound the strip of white linen from her lower calf. Stained with streaks of drying blood, the bandage was tossed across the piano bench.
“I shouldn’t advise entering at this moment,” said Strathmore. It was the voice of command. The door creaked shut. The shuffle of footsteps could be heard echoing down the hallway.
Julia’s leg burned from his touch, the silk of her skirts brushing against the freshly exposed wound. Sanity was becoming a distant memory.
“You’re very quiet.” He slanted her a glance. “And you haven’t answered my question.”
It had happened only three times in her life—a stone in her throat, holding back all words. When she had first arrived to live with Meredith, she had not spoken a word for a year. And once, when Rowena had nearly been taken from them by fever, she had felt the same suffocating thickness lodge in her throat.
She felt the room darken, her mouth opening abruptly. Then she closed her lips at whatever she wanted to say, her brows coming together in frustration. Strathmore studied her for a heartbeat until some sort of realization gradually lit his eyes. As though he understood something about her that she didn’t want him to know.
“It’s the only way,” he said. “You are most likely feeling the aftereffects of shock so I will cut to the chase. We haven’t much time.” He didn’t have to gesture to the closed door behind them for her to understand. “I am looking for Faron. As I surmise, you are, too.”
It seemed to be both an acknowledgement and a warning. When she still didn’t respond—couldn’t respond—she focused on the door behind him, the handle turning slowly and ominously. She pointed mutely.
Strathmore took in the situation instantly. “Now is the time to scream, Miss Woolcott,” he said tightly.
“Do what?” The words finally came, hoarse and tentative at the same time. It was some kind of macabre test. He aimed his pistol at the door. A charged second followed. He kept the pistol trained on the door and expertly wedged the back of a chair under the doorknob. With a quick move, he removed the pin anchoring his cravat and jammed the lock with an expert thrust.
“Give us a moment, will you, Beaumarchais?” He made his voice low and furious. “Miss Woolcott isn’t herself.”
How could he possibly know it was Beaumarchais lurking behind the closed door? Julia’s mind spun.
“Is the lady unwell?” It was Beaumarchais’s voice.
“I shall manage.”
Time was suspended as they both listened to receding footsteps. Julia swallowed hard, convulsively, before finding her voice. She needed to leave. “Your honesty is timely, sir,” she said aware of the French doors behind her as well as an overriding and competing compulsion to know him—the man who could bring her closer to the shadow that threatened her family. “What is your connection to Faron?”
“You mean our mutual connection to Faron.” His response was curt and distant.
Very well, then. The throbbing in her lower leg kept time with her rising pulse. “Did he hire you? Promise you something in exchange for harming me and my family?”
“This is not the time for this discussion. But clearly we want the same thing—otherwise neither of us would be here this evening.”
“Who arranged to hire you, then, if it wasn’t Faron?”
Strathmore hadn’t the time or patience for discussion. “Look here, Miss Woolcott. If I were to fulfill my obligations you would be dead by now.”
“You are to kill me,” she said in a rush, and took two steps backwards.
“However, I decided not to.” It was a simple declaration. His face was in partial shadow. There was no regret, anger, or weakness in his expression.
Panic accelerated her thoughts. She glanced at the piano, the blood-stained bandage and then at Strathmore. It was all beginning to add up with a strange logic. “So we are to make it appear as though a murder has taken place. Hence, the directive that I scream bloody murder, as it were.”
“It’s a way out, although you don’t appear grateful.” Strathmore, the infuriating man, seemed distantly amused. It was Julia’s turn to make a quick decision.
“We have yet to quit this place successfully,” she said, “so gratitude is not yet in order. Against my better judgment, I have no choice but to wait for your explanations. I can see for myself that we have no time.”
“And I for yours,” he said, the words taut.
Julia’s thoughts were a pattern of images and emotions, fatigue making it difficult to shape them into coherence. She barely recognized herself. She had left her home against her aunt’s wishes, attacked a footman and, dear lord, pressed herself into Strathmore’s long hard body with a flagrancy and need that was completely foreign to her. And she’d listened to that same man declare his intention to kill her.
Delirium. There was no other explanation. She tried to imagine looking at the tangle of events through the frame of her camera. The lens never lied, she told herself. What she saw was Strathmore at the center of the composition, the axis that would lead her to Faron. She felt a sickening dread that Faron would not desist, that her involvement in the debacle was just the beginning, that Meredith’s and Rowena’s demise stood at its tragic end.
She said, “I shall follow your lead.”
He didn’t bother to reply, gesturing to the floor by the piano bench. “Lie face down, turned away from the door. The story is that we argued, you produced a pistol, shot wildly in anger”—he gestured to the splintered plaster overhead—“and proceeded to shoot yourself whilst aiming for me.
“Clearly, a lover’s spat,” she said wretchedly as she crumpled to the floor, favoring her injured leg with a quickly stifled wince. The carpet against her cheek was soft, the oriental pattern swirling around her like a whirlpool.
“I tried to staunch the blood,” Strathmore continued, gathering up the discarded linen from the piano bench before bunching it at the indentation of her waist.
Julia partially closed her eyes, willing to shut out the sheen of his booted feet as they rested by her head. She heard him step away, remove the chair from underneath the doorknob. A quiet click as the lock turned and then Strathmore’s low growl. “Have my carriage sent around.”
Julia slowed her breaths, watching through her lashes. Four pairs of eyes appeared at the door, staring at the scene—the woman on the gleaming parquet floor, bleeding onto the carpet. Whether they were breathing hard in lust or shock, she couldn’t tell. But Robertson had gone so pale the spots on his face were as vivid as the scarlet waistcoat he wore.
“There has been an unfortunate accident,” Strathmore said. He ostentatiously waved the pistol in his hand as evidence.
Wadsworth’s eyes, beneath the purple pouches, were the size of billiard balls. “I say, old boy, this is entirely unacceptable. I should have expected that you could manage the woman, histrionics and all. I can’t have this type of scandal getting out,” he blustered, his multitudinous chins wagging in disbelief.
“Is she dead?” asked Beaumarchais abruptly. He was to the side of the doorway, outside Julia’s sight.
“I presume so,” said Strathmore with supreme